To escape the pressures of growing up, magic-obsessed kids congregate at the one place they can be themselves. They want to prove their worth on the same stage where superstar magicians like Blaine & Copperfield once performed. But to get there, they need to learn more than sleight of hand & tricks of the trade. They have to find the magic inside.
Documentary covering the end of an era as Polaroid stops producing its signature cameras and film as well as The Impossible Project to keep instant photography alive.
Fans of the one and only "Weird Al" Yankovic have banded together to get the Grammy-winning funnyman one honor that has eluded him: induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Campaign organizer Greg Method traces the career of the parodist, talks to fans from around the world to see what makes them tick, and follows the development and economic impact of the Cleveland museum. It is equal parts exposé, tribute, and a call to arms in this unauthorized look at the MTV generation's greatest rock humorist.
In 2005, filmmaker Broderick Fox was found on the Berlin subway tracks with his head split open and a lethal blood alcohol level of 0.47. Strangers pulled him to safety, giving him a second chance at life and propelling him on a global journey to explore the limits of body, mind, spirit and art. Spanning Germany, Canada, Japan, Kenya, and the United States, Fox's journey includes collaborations with Canadian First-Nations artist Rande Cook and African-American artist Zulu, who help him memorialize his experiences in a full back tattoo. In our digital age where personal confession and self-exposure abound, Fox instead transforms his experiences into art, making a film that is both innovative and accessible.
Jean-Pierre Bauwens Junior is a 23-year-old youth world champion in the lightweight category of boxing, with a very special family. He is the oldest of seven siblings, four of whom suffer from autism. Junior doesn't just fight for pride or glory; he is fighting for a better future for his poor family. By boxing his way to the top, he wants to buy them a bigger house. But then tragedy strikes: Junior's autistic brother kills his father by accident. This film shows the tough clash between a loving family and the cold reality.
A captivating history of the nation's oldest performing arts center - which largely mirrors the evolution of experimental and progressive performing arts in 20th century America - BAM150 chronicles the vibrant past, present and future of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Through footage of recent performances, intimate interviews, and an astonishing treasure trove of 150 years' worth of archival materials, BAM150 is a testament to the power and stamina of the institution that established Brooklyn as a cultural mecca-serving as a home to such greats as Enrico Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, Merce Cunningham, Robert Wilson, Mark Morris, Laurie Anderson, and Pina Bausch.
A documentary film that explores the early Boston Hardcore music scene from the years 1981 through 1984. This film delves into the social and communal aspects of that particular era. The community, culture, straight edge and DIY (do it yourself) ethic of the time are all explored in the film. Never before seen archival footage, photographs, interviews and dramatizations make up the body of the film. Bands included are SS Decontrol, DYS, Gang Green, The FU's, Jerry's Kids, Negative FX, The Freeze, and more.
While filming a documentary in Mississippi in 1965, Frank De Felitta forever changed the life of an African-American waiter and his family. In 2011, Frank's son returns to the Delta to examine the repercussions of that fateful encounter.
Adam learns that his Yogi guru, Anand, has discovered a prophesy that was printed on his birth chart - he would die in an accident at the age of 27; and when Anand invites Adam to join him on a motorcycle journey through India's Himalayas, to the highest motorable road in the world, he faces the ultimate question: Is truly living worth dying for?
The story of Grand Canyon's hidden slot canyons, the canyoneers who systematically explored their drainages, and the secrets hidden deep within their walls.
It contains 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system and sheds hot plasma at nearly a million miles an hour. The temperature at its core is a staggering 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. It convulses, it blazes, it sings. You know it as the sun. Scientists know it as one of the most amazing physics laboratories in the universe.
A documentary regarding the story of Majed El Shafie, who was arrested, tortured and condemned to die in his home country of Egypt after coverting from Islam to Christianity. He now fights for inividuals suffering intense persecution, even putting his life on the line to save a child in Pakistan who was raped at 2 years of age by a Muslim extremist.
"...in 1968, under a haze of publicity, 'The Beatles' opened their collective door to musicians, writers, artists, film-makers, inventors, designers, freaks and opportunist sharks. But despite a hefty investment, little of substance was forthcoming, except for "Apple Records". "This is the story of a record label which came to exist under extraordinary circumstances, produced extraordinary records and was operated under extraordinary guidelines..." "Strange Fruit" offers new interviews with Tony Bramwell, members of 'Badfinger', 'The Iveys', 'Elephant's Memory', Jackie Lomax, 'Brute Force' and David Peel, plus commentator Chris Ingham, author, journalist Mark Paytress and Apple biographer Stefan Granados. The film also includes Apple music, archive footage of Apple artists, interviews from the vaults, rare images and location films.
Michael Tilson Thomas explores the lives of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, through a musical performance that features five performers and the New World Symphony orchestra.
THE INVISIBLE STRING tells the fascinating love story between human beings and flying plastic. The documentary takes the audience on a trip from the very beginning of pie pin tossing at the Frisbie's Pie bakery in Connecticut back at the turn of the century to the Rose Bowl World Championships in the late 1970s up to the hottest spots of today. It's a journey into the heart and mind of the people that started it all by inventing games, skills, and creating a global family. Rare archive footage of the 1970s and 1980s, when playing Frisbee grew to become a major alternative sport just as popular as skateboarding or surfing, alters with Monty Pythonesque animations on the joy of throwing flying objects. The most influential people give their personal accounts as remarkable stories are told revolving around living with flying discs.
The documentary BERLINIZED describes this very Berlin-specific attitude in a reflection on and a journey to mid-1990s' Berlin. Filmmaker Lucian Busse, an active protagonist of the period, documents the transformation of Berlin after the Wall. But Berlinized represents more than just the 1990s - it is a metaphor for this virally catching creative feeling, the slightly rough directness, spiced up with a big dash of typical Berlin humor. Berlinized lets the former protagonists reflect how that temporary feeling of freedom shaped their individual lives, and to what degree that freedom can still be found among the neat order of today's Berlin. These reflections are as diverse as the interviewees and as multifaceted as the changes in those times.
A heartwarming comedy about six piano players striving to win the World Championship of Old-Time Piano (mostly ragtime). With brilliant showmanship and skill these competitors vie for the glow of victory, for escape from the trials of their everyday lives, and for the revival of the first distinctly American popular music.
Every third Monday of the month, two bold, brassy sisters open the doors of their Long Island hair salon to women diagnosed with cancer. As locks of hair fall to the floor, women gossip, giggle, weep, face their fears, and discover unexpected beauty.